Dr Who

New Doctor Who spin off announced: Tales of the TARDIS

Posted on by indiemacuser

As over 800 episodes of Doctor Who land on BBC iPlayer they will all sit in one place – The Whoniverse.

Welcome to the world where you can find every Doctor, every companion and, terrifyingly, hundreds of monsters that have appeared in Doctor Who. From the 1st November, The Whoniverse will become the official name, and dedicated home, for all shows within the orbit of Doctor Who which will live on BBC iPlayer. With over 800 episodes of Doctor Who content already in the back catalogue, The Whoniverse will launch with a brand new logo, and every piece of Doctor Who content will carry a brand new ident, instantly bringing all the Doctor Who worlds together in one place and it will continuously expand.

The first exclusive content to land in the Whoniverse will be Tales of the TARDIS, a brand new six-part series that reunites beloved classic Doctor Who duos, as they board a very special TARDIS on a nostalgic voyage through space and time.

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Doctor Who 60th Anniversary specials available to pre-order on Steelbook, DVD and Blu-ray

Posted on by indiemacuser

Following the Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary specials airing in November, all three episodes will be available for Doctor Who fans to add to their home entertainment collection in December 2023..just in time for Christmas!

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Doctor Who 60th Specials Air Date and Titles Released

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The BBC have today announced that hit Sci-fi Show Doctor Who is set to return to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 25th November.

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Writers Kate Herron and Briony Redman Join Forces for Doctor Who

Posted on by indiemacuser

The new series of Doctor Who will feature an episode co-written by writing duo Kate Herron and Briony Redman, which will air once Ncuti Gatwa takes control of the TARDIS as the Fifteenth Doctor.

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60 years of Doctor Who drops on BBC iPlayer alongside online archive 

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Over 800 episodes of Doctor Who programming all available on BBC iPlayer.

Every episode on iPlayer will now be available with subtitles, audio description, and sign language for the first time.

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Review: Doctor Who – Once And Future – Two’s Company

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

Once and Future continues, or rather plods along, with Two’s Company and return to a Sixth Doctor driven story, the second in this very series. However even Colin Baker can’t save this one as Two’s Company strikes out as the weakest of the stories we’ve had so far, which is saying something given the overall response to Once and Future so far can be summed up with the phrase ‘meh.’ The phrase ‘Dartboard Plotting’ has been coined recently to describe elements of Big Finish’s current output, and I feel it was this story which catalysed the recent surge of that phrase’s use. When looking at this story, which contains two companions from the modern era paired with the Sixth Doctor and an older Harry who team up to fight a fan favourite Big Finish original baddie, it is hard to not simply say this is epitome of randomised idea generation.

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Review: Unit Nemesis – Masters of Time

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The UNIT range from Big Finish Productions’ latest story arc UNIT Nemesis has become the latest four box set miniseries to come to a close with UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time, a set that to properly review without beating around the bush, feels as if production issues and rescheduling caused the recording dates to be moved around and actor availability to cause rewrites, especially to the first three scripts.  UNIT: Nemesis: Objective – Earth ended with the big reveal that Missy is behind everything and working with the Vulpreen to take over the Earth, a great cliffhanger but sadly UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time takes until the final episode for Missy to actually appear, having several mentions through the first three episodes.  This is an issue that could be lessened by the use of the Vulpreen, who have been a major secondary threat throughout the miniseries, paired with the Eleven who was written out completely for Masters of Time.  The issues here is that the Vulpreen never actually come together in this set as a credible threat to take over the Earth, the first three of the stories instead focusing on the UNIT characters and then the final episode being focused on Missy.

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Review: Doctor Who – Once and Future – A Genius For War

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Big Finish Productions’ third installment of their 60th anniversary celebratory series, Once and Future, has been released and puts degenerating Doctor into his Seventh incarnation, played by Sylvester McCoy for A Genius for War.  A Genius for War is interesting because the TARDIS is intercepted so the Doctor can go on a mission for the Time Lords led by the General and Veklin, played by Ken Bones and Beth Chalmers respectively, as Davros, played by Terry Molloy, has an offer for the Time Lords.  The TARDIS being taken by the Time Lords means that this is an episode that feels more like a side step for the series, and as such Jonathan Morris is allowed to tell a complete Time War story in one hour, however, there is some oddities with the characterisation of the Doctor.  Past Lives characterised the Fourth Doctor as not the Fourth Doctor due to the Doctor being a future Doctor in the body of the Fourth Doctor, but The Artist at the End of Time altered the characterisation so the Fifth Doctor acted as the Fifth Doctor.  Jonathan Morris doesn’t quite take either approach, A Genius for War blending the portrayal to play to McCoy’s strengths but also feel as if it was rewritten for a different Doctor.  This is certainly a possibility as Morris could easily have pitched this as a War Doctor story, the War Doctor on Big Finish is at least similar in the types of stories he has to the Seventh Doctor, so the rewrites while extensive wouldn’t have been as complicated as say rewriting the story for the Fifth Doctor or Eighth Doctor for instance.  Morris’ script makes the Doctor take charge of the mission to find Davros and then blends several past and future stories into a single hour.

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Review: Doctor Who – Prisoners of London

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Review by Jacob Licklider

There honestly wasn’t a surprise when Matthew Waterhouse was revealed to be writing a second Doctor Who Audio Novel for Big Finish Productions.  Watchers was a wonderful examination of the character of Adric and Season 18 on the whole, reflecting on Waterhouse’s time on the show through the program.  What is surprising is that Waterhouse does not attempt to strike lightning in a bottle a second time with Prisoners of London, instead crafting a story that very easily could have slotted in the middle of Season 19.  The premise feels like a standard idea that could have come from a pitch by John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward in the best way, the TARDIS lands in London, 1982 leading Tegan to believe that the Doctor has finally gotten her home even if it isn’t Heathrow Airport as she was expecting.  This London, however, is not the London that we know, it is ruled by Emperor Geoffrey Chaucer, there are police boxes on every corner ready to arrest those breaking laws, and there are far too many Tower Bridges down practically every street.  Now Prisoners of London is presented in the now typical format for the Audio Novels of multiple parts and not the typical chapter structure of a novel, however, this one suffers slightly from that format.  Waterhouse clearly has experience as a novelist and as such is writing Prisoners of London in that format, especially apparent in the final moments of the production which jump ahead in the life of the Doctor significantly for a sequence that in a normal novel would be an epilogue, but here is just presented as the final scenes which make it stand out as odd.

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Review: Seventh Doctor Adventures – Far From Home

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Seventh Doctor Adventures of 2022 were split between two TARDIS teams and it seems 2023 will be following this format, the second set being the first installment of The Last Day which was announced in the original pitch announcement for Big Finish Productions’ move to the box set model, but the first of the year continues the companion threads of Sullivan and Cross – AWOL with Far from Home.  Now, social media has made several Spider-Man jokes but I actually haven’t kept up with the MCU so insert topical Spider-Man reference here, but Far from Home is the set that wants to take Harry and Naomi away from their second status quo of 21st century London and into a past that is a very prominent shadow for both of them and into the far-flung future.  The structure of the set follows Conflicts of Interest by giving the listener two three-part stories to enjoy and once again I cannot praise Big Finish enough for going with this model, it’s a far more sustainable model for storytelling than a reliance on one hour Doctor Who stories as the short runtime often leads to overstuffing and an underbaked exploration of the idea.  With three-part stories, especially on audio where the standard length of an episode is 30 minutes instead of just the classic 25 minute format, writers can push their one-hour ideas to what they need to be without needing tot do a larger story that would suit the four-part format.

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